Minnesota Opinion: Don’t shortchange transportation needs

From Forum News Service
A recent editorial from a Minnesota newspaper.
Don’t shortchange transportation needs
With all the bluster last fall from candidates for Minnesota House and for statewide offices and after a flash of funding strategies and project proposals at the outset of this legislative session, Minnesotans were bracing for a monster tab and an aggressive, unprecedented commitment to fixing up highways, bridges and other transportation systems, much of the work long overdue.
But what had been brewing to be a breathtaking boom is shaping up to be a disappointing dud, at least in the assessment of one Minnesota lawmaker.
“I think it’s going to be a modest bill,” Rep. Erik Simonson of Duluth said in an interview this week with News Tribune editorial board members. “Now that we have it in front of us (there’s the realization that) it’s always difficult to raise (taxes) or to cut things or to move money from one pile to another. So now we’re hearing a lot of talk … that maybe we just do something small and study the problem further.”
Study further? The Minnesota Department of Transportation already thoroughly studied highway and bridge repair needs and determined $700 million ought to be spent every year for the next 20 years just to keep up with what’s already in place. In addition, in 2012, a Transportation Finance Advisory Committee projected the need at $250 million a year - again, just to “maintain” our existing state roads and bridges. We’re not talking about any improvements here or any local road, bridge and pothole work.
This session, Gov. Mark Dayton asked for a $400 million-a-year commitment and, more recently - and apparently as a way to put pressure on the Legislature to finally take bold action - the governor put out a list of more than 600 roads and bridges that need fixing now.
Doing “something small” instead would put off a problem that’s only growing worse and more expensive. Rather than getting a handle on anything, a great need would be left unaddressed and unchecked. And the highways and bridges we drive on every day literally would be left to crumble further and become more dangerous.
Minnesota more than anywhere ought to know the risk of ignoring unsafe infrastructure. Who can forget the Interstate 35W bridge collapsing into the Mississippi River in 2006 in downtown Minneapolis?
Making Minnesota’s transportation needs even more dire and even more pressing are two realities. One, gas taxes aren’t generating what they used to. Cars are more fuel efficient and mass transit and bicycling are growing in popularity. And two, federal money for Minnesota roads via the Federal Highway Trust Fund is declining. It dropped a whopping 38 percent from 2008 to 2013 when adjusted for inflation, according to an Associated Press analysis that made headlines this week.
No one on the campaign trail or in St. Paul ever questioned the great need. The only wild card was how to pay for it. DFLer Dayton proposed new taxes, including on gas at the wholesale level. GOPers said the money could be found by cutting elsewhere from the state budget, including evermore efficiencies at MnDOT. Both positions were extreme and unrealistic. But bringing together the best of each promised to best serve Minnesotans already preparing, even if they weren’t excited about it, for the bill to come, with the assurance that a major problem finally was being taken care of.
“It’s unfortunate,” Simonson said of the likelihood of a “modest bill” and “something small” this session instead. “Looking at things is always important. But there’s a hesitance and a reluctance (by House-majority Republicans) to spend new money. And I think there’s even more reluctance from the Senate and the governor to shift money from other things to transportation. So where do we end up?”
If Simonson is right and this year’s transportation bill is modest and small, Minnesota ends up with a failure of leadership.
- Duluth News Tribune